Hidden Depths
by QuickSilverFox3
Summary: Oliver returns home to mountains of baked goods... So why is this a bad sign? Written for International Wizarding School Championship Summer Camp. AU


**Singing- It's never too late to be what you might have been. **

**Write about trying to become what your heart desires, be it a singer, dancer, actor etc. (100 points)**

**[Everybody Lives AU with Oliver, Percy and Audrey in a poly relationship, set shortly after the war]**

Flour dusted Percy's hands as he worked, glasses precariously on the bridge of his nose threatening to fall at any moment. His hair, a previously vibrant red, was steadily approaching a dusty white as was the paint on the walls. Carefully littered on every available surface around him lay trays of gently steaming biscuits, delicate pastry cases, undecorated cakes and muffins, fruit almost oozing from the sides. His lips were moving frantically, eyes almost manic as he flitted around the kitchen, mind whirling a mile a minute.

"Percy?"

Oliver cracked the door open a fraction wider, the smell alerting him to the situation far sooner than any words could: buttery sweetness and the taste of sugar lingering on the air. That was both good in terms of meals for the next few weeks, and counter to that, bad for Percy. He'd raised the topic at the last Weasley family gathering and the other spouses agreed it was a family trait, mostly likely from Molly Weasley.

Bill knitted, scraps of wool lying like fallen leaves in his path as he wandered the house in moments of high stress, hands more like paws, teeth bared and curled.

Charlie took photographs, translating nervous energy into complete stillness as he disappeared for hours at a time and emerging with twigs in his hair, more dirt on his face than visible skin, and photographs on Muggle flash-paper held triumphantly.

Fred painted, though true to the chaotic underlying of his nature he rarely painted on canvas, choosing instead to decorate whatever free wall or floor spaces he could find, delicate splashes of colour unfurling underneath his hands.

George sewed, bright ribbons and soft fabrics intertwining to create clothes, tucked immediately into a small railing in the shop or gifted to Lee, the man proudly wearing his husbands' creations, as loud and colourful as could be.

Ron wrote, quill darting between ink well and journal, a trail of black smudges marking his passage through it.

Ginny danced, music filling the house, loud and overpowering, floorboards shaking as she twirled and twisted her way from room to room, unable to stay still.

Percy baked. He baked enough to feed an army. He baked until he ran out of things to bake, and then he started again in the direst of circumstances. Oliver steeled himself, scuffing his muddy boots on the welcome mat, and pushed the door open fully, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

"Percy?"

No answer. Audrey was away on a business trip, a comforting buffer Oliver desperately longed for in this trying time and he was forced to face his husband by himself. Carefully he placed his satchel down by the door, ears perked for any change in sound from the kitchen. Nothing except the low-level grumbling of Percy, too quiet to make out anything concrete, and the steady hum of the oven, a huge heavy-set object that almost dominated the kitchen. It was time.

Oliver stepped into the kitchen, pushing the door closed behind him with a click that seemed supernaturally loud. No escape for either of them.

"Hey Percy love. What's up?"

Percy jumped with a yelp at the sound of his voice, bare feet slipping slightly as he wheeled around.

"Hi Oliver, I uh- didn't hear you come in," Percy laughed nervously, wiping flour covered hands off on flour covered trousers, pushing his glasses further up his nose. He shifted from foot to foot, never quite meeting Oliver's gaze as he inspected the spread of pastries and cakes around him, his own personal Eden of baked goods.

"I wasn't expecting you home so soon," Percy ventured, beginning to shift trays out of the way, propping them up with other trays in a way only someone trained by Molly Weasley could accomplish.

"Meeting was cancelled so I thought I'd head home early for once. Audrey mentioned you seemed a bit stressed this morning?"

That was a calm way of putting the fire call he received at four in the morning, Oliver catapulting himself out of bed at the noise, wand drawn and mind creating Death Eaters out of the shadows. When his heart has regained a normal human speed, collapsed into an armchair by the fire with a cup of very sweet tea, he witnessed Audrey managing to talk around the subject for a solid ten minutes, fighting a losing battle against her curls.

"Percy's stressed about something. Has he said anything to you?"

Oliver had shaken his head, jaw cracking as he yawned.

"I would have written it down. Communication is key, remember?"

Before the relationship, Oliver wasn't much of a letter writer, but needs must and it was touching to have a physical reminder of his partners when one was stuck in meeting after meeting and the other was travelling, shaking down investors and slowly but surely making progress.

Audrey chuckled, the images of Oliver's messy scrawl, half pictograms and half shorthand still fresh in her mind.

"I feel awful I can't be there so call me if anything comes up?"

"Yeah sure, of course."

"I don't know why she'd think that," Percy deflected, blinking almost owlishly at Oliver and looking as guilty as if he'd been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. A good liar in his personal life, he was not.

Oliver made a noncommittal noise, lifting a tray off of a barstool and hopping up to wait, stealing a cookie even as Percy swatted in his general direction with a wooden spoon. This was the part that grated on his nerves, the waiting and the watching. In Quidditch it was different, so much action to watch and plan and respond to even if he was mostly still. And here, now?

Oliver turned all that attention onto Percy, seeing him squirm under the sheer weight of it. Audrey and Percy were both doers, rushing from one task to another, barely staying still and relying on Oliver to anchor them.

"I quit my job."

Oliver was very glad he was sitting, half convinced that if he had been standing that he would have fainted from the shock. He quickly composed himself, drawing in a deep breath before raising his gaze to meet Percy, the other man so pale beneath the flour his freckles were standing out in stark contrast.

"Okay," Oliver said slowly, "Are you feeling alright?"

Percy paused, eyes shifting to the side, mouth twisting as he thought.

"Yeah? I mean, it was killing me, and I know you and Audrey were worried. I just- I had enough, I couldn't stand that job anymore."

Oliver nodded, absentmindedly crumbling a cookie as he thought.

"I'm happy that you are happy, Audrey will be as well if you're okay with giving her a Floo call? She was worried when she left this morning."

"You're not mad?" Percy asked, sinking into the stool opposite Oliver, reaching forward and interlocking their fingers desperately.

"No, I'm gonna support you in your choices. I love you and I love Audrey so I'm in this for the long run."

Percy grinned sheepishly, glancing around at all the full baking trays.

"I'll give her a call now if you can help me clean up after?"

"Of course."


End file.
